


Two Sides of the Desert

by Featherstorm77



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Featherstorm77/pseuds/Featherstorm77
Summary: For Keith's birthday.Keith shifts, leaning back on his palms and tracing the fading light's path along the horizon. It outlines the mountains in sharp contrast, navy bleeding into warm cream as the night creeps further, urging the colours away and bringing forth the underside of the desert.There are a million memories lodged in the hills, but one is cycling over and over. It's one that calls to the desert, speaks to it and says its name.





	Two Sides of the Desert

The desert breathes life anew into Keith. The wind sends great puffs of air his way, tangling his hair and coaxing his lungs into movement. It twirls and leaps and guides his hoverbike through the dusty hills and onwards. The desert is endlessly old, but in its wisdom, has held onto that giddy joy that Keith feels bubbling up in his throat. It breaks his voice in the sound of a breathless and uncontrolled laugh that he fully embraces.

He eases off the gas and does a somewhat reckless leap onto the ground, knowing a scraped knee is more than worth it to hold onto the feeling of being too much to contain. He ends up sitting, turning his attention upwards to the sky stained pink. It's a view he's seen a million times, but it never ceases to take his breath away.

The sudden silence in the absence of the wind is a soothing sensation, but it hides the beauty of the golden peaks, of the persevering plants, of the stubborn life. There is an ecosystem that's living and growing and thriving even in the harshest of conditions, and Keith is reflected in that. It’s his home, but it would have been whether he had grown up among it or not.

As he stands overlooking the dying sunset, the fading warmth of the day sinks into his bones, buoying him. The two sides of the desert are two sides of a coin and watching the flip from a rocky cliff is the same watching the world shift on its axis from space. It does not announce itself, but simply is, and that's what makes it something to behold. 

Keith shifts, leaning back on his palms and tracing the fading light's path along the horizon. It outlines the mountains in sharp contrast, navy bleeding into warm cream as the night creeps further, urging the colours away and bringing forth the underside of the desert.

There are a million memories lodged in the hills, but one is cycling over and over. It's one that calls to the desert, speaks to it and says its name.

A boy leans his head against the window of an old truck as it speeds past...well, not much of anything. That's the trick. Everyone thinks the desert is boring and hot and dangerous but this boy has always had a secret love for it. 

He knows that if you look closely enough, it's alive. Maybe people just aren't paying attention. He can understand lacking something people think you need and being ignored for it. Even when it's something you can't help.

He has no love for anything around him, but he knows the desert will never let him down. He's all anger and resentment and sadness bottled up in a tiny body just waiting for the right moment to spark and light. But the desert soothes the fire, calms him, reassures. It's not going anywhere, and though it doesn't speak to him, because that would be silly and he's not that young anymore, he knows that all nature has some sort of knowledge. This one calls to him.

He's been elsewhere, but the desert is always pulling on his heart, always telling him to dig a little deeper and explore and question himself and, at the end of the day, it's saying he can live too. He can _thrive._

The Keith with stories of the stars and war just gets to his feet, brushes off his hands, and smiles gently.

The desert was right.

_It always is._

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me on [tumblr](https://featherstorm77.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/featherstorm77?s=09)


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